Imaginary Oklahoma is an ongoing project in which some of today’s most important and influential writers combine with artists to provide a fictional take on this place we call home. Through a wide variety of voices, styles, and literary devices, these works prove that “Oklahoma” is much more than a place, it’s an idea.

“Get the fuck in the truck!”

“You kidding me, old man?”

“If I were kidding would this fucking Glock be pointed at your dome? Get the fuck in the truck!”

Kevin Durant cradled the four basketballs under his massive wingspan and obediently stepped up onto the back of a twenty-six foot U-Haul.

“Got you, too, huh Kev?” came a baritone voice.

“Sure did, Perk.”

“Westbrook and Harden are under the tarp playing dominoes sharing a turkey sub.”

“Where we headin’? Back to Seattle?”

“Nah. Too obvious. That’s the first place David Stern would look. I think I heard the old dude with the gun and the temper mention something about Santa Fe.”

“So we’ll be the Santa Fe Thunder?”

“He wants us to pitch him team nicknames on the way. There’s an intercom on the wall over there.”

“This could be really fun,” said GM Sam Presti as he folded towels into thirds. “I love the marketing side of basketball.”

“How about the Santa Fe Nets?” said a hopeful Nazr Mohammed, seated in a tiny folding chair on Serge Ibaka’s lap.

“There’s already a New Jersey Nets,” proclaimed Presti.

“Yeah, but when they move to Brooklyn in 2012, I heard they’ll be changing their name. So we’ll only be sharing it for a season.”

“How about the Santa Fe Westbrooks?” came a voice from under the tarp.

“A little too on-the-nose. But press the intercom and pitch it,” blurted coach Scottie Brooks, stepping out of the shadows. “You never know.”

“Dirk, what the hell are you doing here!? You’re not even on our team!”

“Thabo Sefolosha called me up and asked if I’d help you guys move. Said there was some free pizza in it.”

“Must’ve been Dwight Howard pulling another prank.”

Then the old man with the Glock reappeared, fired several warning shots through the roof of the U-Haul and said Mapquest had fucked up the directions and he was now moving the team to Little Rock, Arkansas where they’d be nicknamed the Slammers.

Brian Frazer is a former stand-up comic who has also written for a variety of television shows, including Mad TV, The Tom Green Show and Blind Date, where he met his wife, Nancy, when they were both thought-bubble writers. He now writes regularly for Esquire and ESPN the Magazine, and has a monthly column for Los Angeles Magazine. Brian has also written for Vanity Fair, Premiere, and Maxim. He is the author of the book, Hyper-Chondriac: A Memoir.